GE Power Conversion has announced the successful trials of PassiveBoost—its technology to allow remote power networks to go DC.
This is an important step in lowering the cost of power delivered from offshore installations and increasing the electrical output delivered from renewable energy sources in distant, inhospitable places. The trials, performed at the company’s full-scale power system test site near Leicester, in the UK, brought together new technologies, which GE has been introducing over the past four years. The solution on test provides a straight replacement, on the same footprint, for the AC transformer inside every wind turbine and allows direct connection to an efficient, high-voltage, DC power collection grid while reducing cable cost and without the need for an expensive and complex DC breaker. In PassiveBoost, GE has used a new power device packaging technique with a novel cooling system. GE also has its ActiveFoldback fault protection system, which has allowed it to protect the DC network at equivalent or lower cost compared to AC. The PassiveBoost project has been supported by Scottish Enterprise, with parts of the trial system being manufactured in GE’s Glasgow plant.